In the art, sunroofs and other movable surfaces (sunroofs) installed in an opening of a vehicle roof are well known. Through the years, sunroofs have typically been custom developed for a particular vehicle. Also, various mechanisms have been developed to allow the sunroof to move and tilt. These mechanisms also necessitate the need to develop collateral features such as sunshades, frames to maintain vehicle integrity, weather seals, and wind and water management systems. These features also typically require customization to particular vehicle applications. Customization adds to the cost of a sunroof system and ultimately to the cost of a vehicle. A sunroof manufacturer or distributor also typically carries the cost of a large inventory of parts for each of its customized applications, which further increases overall cost and storage space requirements. Further, a custom sunroof application takes time to develop and manufacture, adding delay to implementation and thus overall cost. Also, the amount of time and energy used for the manufacture of a sunroof and the recyclability of its component parts are seldom considered in a sunroof design.
As energy and material costs increase, these negative effects of product customization become more pronounced. Recent attempts, such as found in WEBASTO AG's U.S. Pat. No. 7,441,833 to Pomeroy et al., have begun to address some of these issues. Pomeroy discloses a sunroof assembly that can use some common parts for both a single and double panel sunroof applications.
While these improvements mark a great advance in the art, further advances are possible and desired. For example, use of composite and/or recyclable component parts can reduce overall waste, cost, and weight of a product, thus reducing its ‘carbon footprint’ through lower manufacturing energy and improved vehicle fuel economy. Further, component parts that can be easily adapted over a variety of applications can reduce manufacturing costs, reduce inventory space, and improve product time to market.